Thursday, December 5, 2013

Otautau School Pet Day!!!

Back about a month ago, Rebecca and I got to check out Pet Day at the local elementary school. It happened on a Friday, and Aaron was at work. This is basically a fun day at school where everyone brings pets, and there are games, contests, food stands, and general merriment. Most of the parents come to participate, and lucky for us, guests are welcome! this is an outdoor event, rain or shine. Unfortunately, we pretty much had rain the whole time, but it didn't stop anyone from having a great time, I can tell you that.
So when you imagine a pet day at school, I think most people in the US would expect there to be a lot of dogs, some cats, and then a handful of hamsters/gerbils/guinea pigs/fish/snakes/tarantulas. Welllllll, this is Otautau, South Island, New Zealand. The pet of choice: lamb. There were primarily lambs, followed by calves, dogs, ponies, then just a few random small house pets. It was amazing. Apparently a girl won a prize one year for her pet imaginary giraffe. Bonus points for both imagination and cleanliness. As you could imagine, a field full of lambs, calves and dogs is a little messy. Don't worry, I wore my muck boots once again.... that was a very handy purchase here!
so since lambs are the primary pet, there are a few contests just for them. Each class has a 'sheep drinking' contest. The name threw me off at first too. You don't actually drink the sheep. The sheep have to drink a bottle down, and the fastest one is the winner.

This is Harry, the son of our Clinic Manager, trying to force-feed this lamb the standard 250ml of milk.

One of the little girls in Pink *with her back to us) is the daughter of our clinic manager. If you recall the very early post where we lamb-sat for those two lambs, then you might recognize Harry's and Abbey's lambs! Note all the girls in their pink jackets and all the pink and purple leashes for the lambs...

After the Lamb Drinking, it was time for food and more games. For the Farm Kids Challenge, teams of 3 kids and one adult had to race in an obstacle course that tested brawn, brains, and some good old-fashioned know-how. Poss accompanied little Harry and some of his cousins to take on the challenge. First they had to put one kid in a big wool sack and drag them up and down the course. Then they had to put a series of piping pieces together based on a diagram that was at the other end of the course. Kids had to run back and forth to look at the diagram.

Here's Poss trying to figure out the puzzle.

Then they had to identify 5 different types of grass. Somewhere along they way they had to throw pinecones at a duck decoy on a post to knock it off. Then they had to get everybody over that little blue rope in the picture below without touching the rope.

That hay bale had to be lugged the whole way for some reason, and also had to go over the rope without touching it.

then they had to label the parts of a motorbike, then build a tent over the hay bale using the wool sack. It was a complicated course.

Everybody got a little break after that to enjoy some other games:

Southland Dunking booth! It was actually really cold, so kudos to the people who volunteered to be soaked. That guy is actually a Southland Stags rugby player.

This was Angry Birds.

See, there was at least one dog there.

And thennnnnnnn:

THERE WAS A PET PARADE!!!!!

Complete with bag-piping grand marshall.... I was speechless. They just took a little lap around the school grounds, showing off their pets.

Wait a minute. What's going on with this boy carrying the lamb???

This killed me.... Nothing is more precious than a boy and his.... lamb?